


warm as the rising sun

by unprofessionalbard



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, there is one (1) swear but otherwise its G rated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 06:03:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13564380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unprofessionalbard/pseuds/unprofessionalbard
Summary: Lucretia is a little too focused on her work; Lup thinks an impromptu road trip can solve that problem.





	warm as the rising sun

**Author's Note:**

> written for twinsweek day six (lup ship)!

text message: 03:58: Lup:  
>hey r u still awake

Lucretia starts at the sound of her phone buzzing, and fumbles for it, rubbing her eyes for the fourth time in as many minutes. The text is a welcome distraction from what she’s been doing for the last hour, which is adjusting the colour scheme of this stupid graphic until her eyes hurt.

text message: 03:58: Lucretia:  
>yes, unfortunately.  
>I’m still working on that presentation for work.

text message: 03:59: Lup:  
>i figured. i would tell you to get some sleep but i somehow think that won’t work.

text message: 03:59: Lucretia:  
>you’d be right. I’m almost done anyway

text message: 04:00: Lup:  
>you were done yesterday??? Omg  
>anyway look outside your balcony

Lucretia stifles a yawn, squinting down at the message from Lup before getting up from her desk and opening the balcony door, stepping outside and leaning over the edge. It’s four am. Surely Lup isn’t actually here?

But there she is, leaning against the old pickup truck she bought off craigslist, in the parking space just to the left of the balcony. When she spots Lucretia, she smiles and gives a wave, ignoring Lucretia’s bemused expression. 

“Wherefore art there Romeo,” calls Lup, and Lucretia hides a smile. 

“I’m on the balcony, that’s what I would say,” she says, and Lup grins. 

“I know. I forgot what Romeo said in that scene.” Lup holds up a hand and shakes what she’s holding, and Lucretia can hear the jingle of keys from here. “Are you up for a drive?”

“In the middle of the night?”

“You aren’t sleeping. I’m not sleeping. Roads will be clearer. And I wanna show you something.”

Lucretia shouldn’t. She should work on this presentation. 

But she really, really wants to. She hesitates for a second, and then holds up a hand. 

“Five minutes, okay?”

Lup beams at her as she disappears inside, scrambling around to figure out what she needs. She’s still dressed from the day before, so after a moment of trying to locate where she took her shoes off (the answer is in the bathroom, for God knows what reason), she grabs a parka, her phone, and her keys. She closes the lid of her laptop on her way out, resolving to put work out of her head for the rest of the night. The morning. Whichever.

When Lucretia comes out of her apartment building, Lup’s still leaning on the side of the pickup, doing something on her phone. She hardly looks dressed for a four am outing; her bomber jacket is a decent enough windbreaker, but it’s so thin it’s hardly equipped to deal with cold. She looks like she just rolled out of bed in her tank top and sweats, curly brown hair in the messiest ponytail Lucretia’s ever seen. She might have actually just rolled out of bed. 

Didn’t really matter, because she looked gorgeous either way. Lup grins at her when she sees her, circling back around to clamber into the driver’s seat.

“So,” starts Lucretia, sliding into the passenger side and offering Lup a small smile when she grins at her, “Where are we going?”

“Can’t tell you, it’s a surprise.” Lup sucks in a breath, and then looks over at Lucretia. “It, uh. It is about an hour’s drive from here so if you wanna head back inside I won’t hold it against you.”

“An hour? Lup, it’s four am.” 

“I know, I know— but you weren’t going to sleep anyway, right? And you need to take a break. I know you, Lucretia. You’re overworking yourself over this stupid presentation and I would stake my life on the fact that it’s already perfect even though it doesn’t need to be done for another week.”

Lucretia raises her eyebrows, and sighs, leaning her head back against the headrest. “Well, it is done. Almost done. I’m touching it up.”

“You’re overthinking is what you’re doing. If you wanna stay in— which is totally fine— please just go to bed.”

Lucretia turns her head and Lup is staring at her with these wide, puppy dog eyes, and she knows what little resolve she had left is dissolving. 

Besides. She deserves a break. And there are worse things than an hour in the car with Lup. Lucretia buckles her seatbelt, and Lup grins, turning the keys in the ignition and pulling out of the parking lot. 

Driving on the highway at four am carries a distance from the real world. It’s still dark out, and passing another car seems to strengthen the illusion instead of shatter it. Lup cycles through the radio stations, switching as soon one hits a commercial break. She rests on a country station finally, rolling down the windows and blasting it to compensate for the rush of the wind. 

Lucretia only knows the lyrics to about half the songs they’ve played so far, but Lup seems to know them all. It doesn’t really matter; Lucretia drums the rhythm onto the passenger side door and hums along. The radio crackles in and out as they leave the station behind, but Lup’s voice is an enthusiastic as ever, even when the songs fade out to static. Lucretia laughs, and Lup’s smile grows twofold. 

Right before the highway heads into the mountain range, they get out at some rest stop in the middle of nowhere to get shitty gas station coffee that Lup insists on buying because she made Lucretia come out here anyway. Lup also buys three bags of candy and a pack of beef jerky, and Lucretia has to dissuade her from buying chips as well. 

“We aren’t going across the country.” 

Lup reluctantly puts the chips back, but then she says, “We could.”

“Could what?”

“Go across the country.” She’s stepped away from the chips now, and is just staring at Lucretia. Lucretia searches her face for hints that she’s joking, but there’s nothing. “Do you ever think about that? Just getting in a car and driving?”

“I...” Lucretia doesn’t, not practically. She has too much to do here, too many obligations and not enough time to do them, too many promises to keep to even hypothetically get up and leave. And she even knows Lup wouldn’t; Lup has the same number of ties here as she does. And she’s never known Lup to run like that.

( Sometimes the highway has a pull. Like if she was someone else, living a different life, she could just gun it and not look back. Like she’s supposed to get a restart. 

But she’s always pulled back. Her feet feel anchored. 

Standing here in this quiet gas station at four thirty in the morning, watching Lup’s curious eyes, that anchor feels a little less solid. )

“Sometimes,” she says finally, “But I couldn’t do it.” 

Lup smiles like she already knew the answer. “Me either. For starters, Taako would absolutely murder me.” Whatever weird energy had settled in for that moment, it evaporates as Lup continues to chatter. They pay for their items and Lup wishes the gas station attendant luck with staying awake the rest of her shift before they pile back into the truck. Lup checks her phone’s clock several times, and just winks at Lucretia’s questioning gaze. 

The radio stations out here are too staticy for the most part, although Lucretia fiddles with the dial enough to find a classical station. Singing is sort of off the table, so she turns it down a little bit and Lup rolls her window up. 

Lucretia takes a sip of her coffee and makes a face. 

“Oh, it’s burnt.”

“It cost a dollar fifty.” 

“Mmm. So I’m not allowed to expect drinkable coffee when it’s cheap?” Lucretia deadpans, and Lup laughs, looking off the road for a second to grin at her. 

“You can. You’ll probably be disappointed though.”

“Touché.” 

Conversation with Lup is easy. It’s always been easy, even though Lucretia herself isn’t much for talking. Lup gets her jokes and even when she’s doing most of the talking, the conversation doesn’t ever feel forced. 

There’s a moment where Lup laughs and it sounds like music, more so than the symphony playing on the radio when she does. She spots Lucretia looking at her out of the corner of her eyes and says, “What?”

Lucretia wants to find a way to tell Lup how beautiful she is. For all her pride with how she can use words, they always fail her around Lup. Lucretia can’t draw a comparison to artwork because Lup is too alive for that, too present for anything so still and passive to even be an approximation of her. 

Lup’s a lightning storm. A wildfire. 

“Just thinking,” says Lucretia, and turns her gaze back to the road. 

It’s a little after five when Lup pulls the car into a seemingly deserted gravel parking lot. “Oh, good, we’re still a few minutes early,” she says, and then turns off the ignition and opens the car door, before stepping on the seat to haul herself up onto the top of the cab.

“Lup, what—“

“Come on up. You can use the flatbed if you like, it’s a little easier. You don’t want to miss it.”

Lucretia sighs, and gets out of the truck herself, taking Lup’s suggestion to climb into the flatbed first before clambering up onto the cab and sitting herself next to Lup. 

“Just in time,” says Lup, shuffling close enough to Lucretia to make her heart race. 

“In time for what?”

Lup smiles, and points out over the mountains. “Look.”

Ever so slowly, the sun creeps up over the mountains. The sky colours itself in, dark blue igniting into vivid reds and oranges. Behind them, the sky is still dark, but watching the light stretch across the sky takes Lucretia’s breath away. Lup’s talkative nature has gone quiet, and as they watch, she leans her head on Lucretia’s shoulder.

“It’s beautiful,” says Lucretia finally.

“Thought you’d like it.” Lup’s voice is as warm as the rising sun, although Lucretia suddenly tunes into the fact that Lup herself isn’t.

“You’re shivering,” she says. Lup just shrugs, but Lucretia is already pulling off her jacket. Lup spots her and starts to protest.

“You’ll just be cold then— here, what if you just take off the left side, and—“ Lup presses them even closer together as Lucretia takes off her jacket.

“I somehow doubt we’ll both be able to get our arms into the sleeves,” Lucretia says, unable to help the smile forming on her face, before draping the jacket over both their shoulders. “How about a compromise?”

“Works for me,” says Lup, shuffling closer to Lucretia. The chill in the morning air bites, but having Lup share the jacket with her is like sitting near a furnace. “So what do you think? Worth the drive?”

Lucretia looks out at the sunrise, painting streaks of colour onto a dark sky, and at the woman next to her. 

“Of course.” 

Lup beams with a light that matches the sky, and wraps an arm around Lucretia’s waist under the jacket. Lucretia’s breath catches without meaning to and she prays that Lup didn’t notice; if she does, she doesn’t comment. Lucretia’s eyes fix on the tops of the mountains without really looking at it, too focused on the heat of Lup’s skin against hers. 

“Lucretia?” 

She turns her head to find Lup so close that she could count the freckles on Lup’s face if she wanted; her breath smells like bad gas station coffee and gummy worms, which isn’t surprising. And she’s leaning in— Lucretia’s pulse goes haywire, even more than it usually does around Lup. She stops when their foreheads are touching, eyes searching Lucretia’s face for a go-ahead. 

Lucretia raises a hand to cup Lup’s face and closes the gap between them. 

Kissing Lup ignites a fire in Lucretia’s chest. Lup’s nature always seemed too big for her body, and now it spills over into Lucretia, warm and welcoming and _alive_. Lup smiles against her lips, and it makes Lucretia laugh, but breaking the kiss seems to make the moment more real instead of ending it. 

Lucretia kisses her again, and Lup kisses back, her hands warm on Lucretia’s waist. The world gets brighter in time with them, illuminating the two of them in reds and pinks and oranges that Lucretia can feel. 

When they pull apart, Lup smiles at her and Lucretia understands better than ever what makes people write poetry. 

Knows that she could write books about Lup and never pin her down on a page. 

Eventually, they have to drive back. Lucretia does have to finish that presentation, and she knows Lup has her own obligations to get back to. But it’s early. The rest of the world hasn’t yet bothered to wake up. Neither woman is in any rush to get going and move on with the day. 

For now, all they have to do is stay still and watch the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> loving lucretia is gay culture and thats just true. if u arent straight ur obligated to love lucretia or else they revoke your card. jdhgskjdhgsjh anyway. you can find me on tumblr @crewmanjeeter!


End file.
